One Night Stanzas

When There Is No Other Way

I have come
with the same heat
as the sun,
same cold as emptiness.
I am those before me.
This soil is my ancestors
and I am made of secrets,
things we become
when the light has gone.
Black and blue
like butterflies on fingertips
or birds eating some dead thing.
Men are made of consequence.
The world will give you reproaches,
but not relief.
We have risen from that
fearful bed,
the slime of it
clinging to us still.
Strong hands will close
reluctantly into fists
when there is no other way.

Melissa Fry Beasley is a Cherokee poet, artist, and activist from Oklahoma. She is proud to have red dirt running through her veins. She is the Literary Editor of Churn: an art, music, & fashion magazine. You can find her work in print and online in numerous publications including Indian Country Today, Working Effectively With Aboriginal People, Big River Poetry Review, Dog On A Chain Press, Yareah Magazine, and others. She has a blog at http://melissafrybeasley.wordpress.com/, and you can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.

Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

*

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

This cool sterling silver owl is on sale.

These cute kitty cats are on sale.

This magical sweater is on sale.

This set of sweet trinket boxes are on sale.

This cosy alpaca hat is on sale.

This breezy striped dress is on sale.

You get the gist, right? EVERY SINGLE ITEM AT EDINBURGH VINTAGE IS CURRENTLY ON SALE OR IN THE FINAL CLEARANCE SECTION! See something you like? Snap it up!

*

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

You may remember my admission here, in January, that 2011 had not been a very good year. I wrote here — and in my paper journal — that I wanted to reclaim my life from work-related stress and insomnia. I also wrote in my paper journal that I wanted to extricate myself from the politics and cliques of the poetry community (locally and online), and just write. It took a while — nearly all year, with the latter — but I feel like I can now say I managed to do those things. 2012 was a good year, all told. Here’s some of the stuff that happened.

In 2012, I…

* worked as a reader for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the fourth year running.

* won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award, and am about to begin — quite belatedly, which was my choice — my programme of creative mentoring.

* spent two great weekends in York early in the year, and remembered how much I loved it. Going back soon!

* moved from a 0.7PTE contract at work to a 0.5PTE contract, as part of my “reclaim my life!” challenge. Less teaching hours, less office politics, more free time, less stress (also less money, obv, but that’s OK).

* moved into the third year of studying for my PhD in Creative Writing. Switched to a brand new thesis topic for the third time. Probably drove my supervisor crazy.

* delivered a lecture, “Making Poems, Writing Histories, Excavating Myths”, to the Melrose Literary Society.

* went vegan, and I love it.

* scored an amazing haul of SEVENTEEN antique typewriters on Freegle! (Still haven’t got round to starting restoration/reclamation work on most of them…)

* organised an all-female poetry slam to celebrate International Women’s Day 2012. It went really well!

* celebrated my 26th birthday with not one but TWO birthday parties: one a nom-tastic vegan dinner at Zeffirelli’s with my family, the other a fabulous few rounds of cocktails at The Dome with friends. Yay!

* attended the Scottish Women’s Aid Feminist Day School at the University of Edinburgh, and was inspired.

* was shortlisted for an Eric Gregory Award for a second time (first time was 2010. I forgot to enter in 2011).

* competed in Literary Death Match (Edinburgh, ep 4) AND FREAKING WELL WON!

* spent a week in beautiful Barcelona, and totally fell in love with the place.

* spent a weekend training to become a Scottish Women’s Aid Community Champion. Possibly the most empowering weekend of my life so far!

* performed in “Dear Glasgow,” directed by David Grieg, at the Traverse Theatre.

* read poems in a magical launderette in Durham!

* spent a long weekend in gorgeous Whitby — surely the most literary seaside resort there is? — with Lovely Boyfriend.

* was introduced to The West Wing, fell in love, and watched all seven series in the space of a few weeks.

* spent ten days in Greece while One Night Stanzas was on hiatus. Visited Athens, and spent a week in a one-room cold-water whitewashed cottage on the tiny island of Hydra. Here’s the view from our room! We went swimming at daybreak, befriended donkeys, made lots of delicious vegan food, and spent tons of time writing, writing, writing. It was great.

* taught Creative Writing at the Scottish Universities International Summer School for the third consecutive year. My wonderful students were Dan, Linda, Sarah, Joanna, Daniel and Jill. You guys were fab!

* had a poem shortlisted in the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Contest.

* went to see George Watsky on the London leg of his Nothing Like The First Time tour. Also spent a fabby weekend hanging out in London!

* organised and hosted One Night Stanzas presents Watskyx2 — definitely my biggest and scariest moment as a poetry promoter! But it went SO WELL, yay!

* went to a ton of great stuff at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, including Louise Welsh, Andrew Keen, Alice Oswald’s Memorial event (OMG!), Daniel Franklin launching Megachange, Billy Letford & Sean Borodale and Marina Warner (who I also saw at the International Festival, ’cause I’m a fangirl).

* read poems at Blackwells: Writers at the Fringe.

* attended a discussion that included the amazing Jean Kilbourne, personal superheroine of mine, and met her afterwards! Swoon!

* was employed as a creative facilitator with a local women’s community support group (details redacted!), and I am loving working with these amazing women as they read poems, share stories and unlock their creativity!

* joined the Shore Poets committee and became their blogging/tweeting/Facebooking person, among other things!

* survived root canal surgery!

* got tattooed (again).

* went to beautiful Paris for the weekend with Lovely Boyfriend to celebrate our two-year anniversary!

* helped run Scottish Women’s Aid’s I GET IT campaign, spreading positive messages about healthy relationships to young people aged between 16 and 25.

* wrote articles and reviews for The Skinny, xoJane (two, in fact), the Edinburgh Review (again, two! One’s online here) and The Scottish Review of Books.

* had three poems included in Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poetry from the UK

* spent an amazing day at the Maryhill Integration Network in Glasgow, meeting incredible, inspiring women, and being treated to a crash-course in filmmaking, a fashion show, a dance recital and a ton of delicious food!

Favourite photos from this year:

Just one of the many millions of photos I took of delicious vegan breakfast/brunch food. I obtained this book upon becoming vegan and it changed my world!

Lovely Boyfriend being lovely.

I will remember summer 2012 as the summer of hooping in the park with my sister!

I love living in Tollcross — and my top floor, bay-window view! — so, so much.

My fantabulous SUISS Class of 2012!

All the lovely performers from One Night Stanzas presents Watskyx2! Such talent!

Just when I’m feeling down and crap, along come my amazing students to make me feel inspired again.

♡ ♡ ♡

A loopy family portrait.

Visiting the jaw-droppingly gorgeous GiftED sculptures.

& Christmas comes to ONS Towers!

It’s been a great year. I feel I am a million miles away from the place I was in this time last year — phew! I am also extremely excited about 2013 and all that it holds for me. I plan to finish my PhD, put together my first full-length poetry collection (at last!), get more tattoos (yeah!), and start work on a ton of exciting new projects. Wish me luck!

If you want to see what I got up to in 2008, 2009, 2010 or 2011, just click on each year!

*

You can also visit Read This Press for poetry and typewriter paraphernalia! Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

So, I mentioned last week that I wrote a review of Kerry Hardie’s most recent collection, The Oak & The Ash & The Wild Cherry Tree for The Edinburgh Review Issue 136. You can now buy the issue online! BUT, you can also read my review free and gratis — the folks at Gallery Press liked it so much that they put it on their website. Thanks folks!

You may also remember me writing a few weeks ago about the launch of sci-fi poetry anthology Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poems From The UK? I was super-chuffed to have three poems in it, and I’m even more super-chuffed that the folks over at Nature picked one of them to go in their “Where Rockets Burn Through” podcast this week. Thanks again!

Aaaand this is a bit of a scary one, but I am proud of myself for writing it and chuffed that it was published at xoJane, which is rapidly becoming one of my all-time favourite sites. I’ve written here before (but then destroyed the link in post-publication-panic) about my teenage struggles with a rather extreme form of thanatophobia. It seemed pertinent to write about it in a rather more serious way, given the recent OBSESSIVE APOCALYPSE HYPE that I’m sure you’ve all noticed. Of course, the world didn’t end yesterday — hooray! But I wanted to draw attention to this anyway. And for the first time ever, I connected to a fellow thanatophobia sufferer (in the comments), so double hooray!

Happy holidays!

*

You can also visit Read This Press for poetry and typewriter paraphernalia! Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Over at Shakesville, one of my all-time favourite blogs, blogmistress Melissa has this to say about being a blogger and asking for gifts/money:

“Asking for money is incredibly hard for me. I hate doing it. I hate doing it so much, in fact, that there are times I’d actually rather be shit-broke. Part of it is just an innate aversion to asking for anything; part of it is that those threads always end up being extremely upsetting, for reasons that I imagine are evident to anyone who’s read any of them.

[...] Women’s service work, whether it’s mothering, elder care, volunteering, philanthropy, social work, employment in any “pink collar” profession, or social advocacy, is gravely devalued, frequently to the point where it is unpaid work altogether.

And when I don’t ask that my work be valued by the community, I’m feeding that narrative; I’m implicitly saying, “It’s okay to expect this from me. It’s okay to feel entitled to the product of a woman’s work for nothing in return.”—and that makes me feel even worse than asking for money does.”

In the four plus years I’ve run it, I’ve never really asked for money for One Night Stanzas. Sure, in the early days I posted the odd only-half-joking “wishlist”, and until someone tried to steal the image for my painstakingly-designed ‘donate’ button, ONS also had a tip-jar on the sidebar. But I’ve never actively asked for gifts or done anything to make you guys feel like you have to pay to read. It’s worth noting that I’ve also never attempted to make cash off the blog in other ways — I have done a grand total of one kind-of-sort-of-sponsored post in my entire four plus years as a blogger, and I’ve never, ever run ads here. I blog because I like it. Because I’m gobby and have lots of thoughts about stuff. Because the internet scares me and I want a corner of it that’s really safe for me to be — a space that’s just mine.

That said, Melissa did get me thinking. I’ve been hard at work in this space for over four years and it’s not just an echo chamber — although I’ve been moving more and more towards a ‘comments off’ policy here over the past little while (it’s just so much WORK, you guys), I know people do follow, read, enjoy what’s here. Therefore, why not ask for a little recognition? It’s just asking, right? It feels decidedly un-British, but hey, I’m going to do it anyway. So if you’ve read and liked/laughed at/been inspired by/shared the stuff I’ve been putting here over the past year or so*, then why not read on? I’ve included a few very small, very cheap ways that you can give a little something back to One Night Stanzas this festive season.

Buy my book.
You might already have it, but you can always give it as a gift to someone you know who likes one of the following things: poetry, old ladies, typewriters, books, Star Trek. For it has all those things and more inside its pages. There are only three copies left so this is the last chance you’ll ever get to buy one (except maybe in charity shops in years to come). They’re only four quid plus P&P. Read kind things smart people have said about the book — and then rush to buy a copy — right here.

Buy one of the books I have edited.
Sadly, the wonderful — even if I do say so myself — Skin Deep: Poems on Tattoos and Tattooing is now sold out. But! You can still buy one of the two Read This Press titles still available. The first of the two is Chris Lindores’ brilliant debut pamphlet You Old Soak. These are poems about drinking, awkward social interaction, walking around Edinburgh at night, and drinking some more. This book had a limited printing of 150 copies and each copy is uniquely hand-embellished with real red wine stains! Again, only four quid, and available here. The second of the two is the anthology Starry Rhymes: 85 Years of Allen Ginsberg, which contains poems from such superstars (seriously) as Ryan Van Winkle, Tracey S Rosenberg and Colin McGuire. It received a glowing review from the lovely Chris Emslie at Sabotage, which you should totally read. Again, your copy will be one of a tiny limited print run of 140 — every copy was painstakingly handmade! It’s only a fiver and it’s perfect for the Beat Generation enthusiast in your life. You can grab a copy right here.

Make a donation to Scottish Women’s Aid, or help someone living in a refuge
Earlier this year I completed training to become a Scottish Women’s Aid Community Champion, and the work I’ve done with SWA since has been one of the best things about my year. They’re an extremely deserving organisation whose staff, paid and voluntary, all work their socks off to make the lives of women in Scotland and beyond better, brighter and happier. The more donations they get, the more cool projects they can run — check out the recent I GET IT campaign, designed to get young people talking about what makes a healthy relationship — and the more difference they can make. You can buy me the Christmas present of a donation by clicking right here.
If you prefer, you can buy a real present for a woman or child who has been the victim of domestic violence or who is houseless at Christmas for some other reason. John Lewis has a gift list (number 522953) that allows you to buy a gift and send it straight to a woman or child currently living in a refuge. (NB: when picking gifts, bear in mind that most folk are likely to get things for babies. Bear the mums and older kids in mind, too!)

Buy something from Edinburgh Vintage.
Edinburgh Vintage is one of the many various things I do to keep the wolf from the door, as my gran would say, each month. I run it out of my spare room and most of the time, love it (occasionally — like recently, when an Etsy scam buyer swizzled me out of a gold watch AND the money it cost — not so much). It would be a big and much-appreciated deal to me if some of you fine people were to help support this little venture. There are some really nice bits and piece on there at the moment that, in my humble opinion, would make great Christmas gifts — and buying secondhand means unique presents that’re great for the environment! My picks might be this blue enamel coffeepot, which I am totally keeping if no one buys it by Christmas; this totally unused Estee Lauder cosmetics/beauty bag; a sleepy white kitty or a grey Beswick one for the cat-lovers in your life; this novelty wintery jumper, and maybe this amazing antique harmonica (I’m not a musician but this is one covetable little item!). Whether you decide to buy or not, I’d still super-appreciate it if you’d just have a browse (NB: I have a sale section AND a final clearance section)!

Buy me a present present.
If you’re feeling extra-super-generous, you can buy me an actual gift. I never expect anyone to actually do this, but it has happened very occasionally in the past and I’ve always been bowled over by the loveliness and generosity of my readers! So if this is an option you want to go for, you can check out my Etsy favourites (the first page is a lot of bling jewellery I’m keeping an eye on for my some-day lottery win… skip past that for the cheap second hand books and geek paraphenalia!) or my Amazon wishlist. I also get Christmas cards yearly from some ONS readers which is super super super lovely. If you’d like to Christmas card me, drop me a line to claire[at]onenightstanzas.com and I’ll let you know where to address your envelope to (by the way, die-hard readers… I no longer have the ONS PO Box I had for the first couple of years, so if you’ve saved that address, get in touch for a new one)!

If you do any of these things this Christmas, I will seriously love you forever. I will also double-triple promise to continue writing at One Night Stanzas, so this is srs stuff! There’re only twenty days to go now til the big day, so I think it’s no longer too premature to say this: Merry Christmas, ONS readers one and all!

*(If you haven’t, you can just look at these cute photos of a polar bear.)

*

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

It’s been several months since I did my last TiLT, and I’ve had quite a summer! Here are just a few of the things I’ve been loving loads since I last expressed my gratitude here!

Long, summery days in my sunshine-filled living room, crystals in the window throwing tiny rainbows everywhere, drinking tea, reading books, writing poems, not having to go to work.
(Like my mug? I got it from Rust Belt Threads, perhaps my favourite Etsy vintage store after Edinburgh Vintage!)

Hydra, Greece — Lovely Boyfriend and I stayed there for a week, holed up in a tiny whitewashed-stone cottage, writing, reading, occasionally going out to swim in the sea or scratch the noses of the town donkeys. This^ was the view from our living room window!

My SUISS class of 2012 — Jill, Joanna, Linda, Dan, Daniel and Sarah, thank you so much for all your hard work and inspiration!

I MET GEORGE WATSKY, and it was amazing! Thank you a million billion to McGuire, Ryan, Jenny, George and Paul for making One Night Stanzas presents Watsky x2 such an amazing success.

A great summer for Edinburgh Vintage with tons of lovely new stuff being added to the store all the time, nearly 200 sales and some really lovely customer encounters! Thank you everyone who’s browsed, bought, clicked, liked, re-tweeted and given feedback!

Yet more delicious vegan food — since my last TiLT, Lovely Boyfriend has also gone vegan! This means even more delicious vegan meals for my very happy belly. ^These are sweet potato pancakes with maple syrup, and they were UTTERLY LUSH.

Autumn arriving — my favourite time of year. I have already started taking autumnal walks, foraging for early brambles, sitting in the blustery Meadows with my boy watching cute dogs chase leaves, drinking amazing Chocolate Tree vegan hot chocolate, and planning my Halloween antics.

What are YOU loving right now?

*

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

I’ve always liked these — I like doing them, I like the headspace they send me into — and I like seeing others’ answers. So I’m not going to apologise for posting this here. Click through tomorrow for more of the usual if you’re not keen on such things. But thanks to the lovely Katja for supplying this. Check out her serene and beautiful blog.

Your favourite virtue
Honesty.

Your favourite qualities in a man
Humility, loyalty, intelligence, passion, empathy.

Your favourite qualities in a woman
Straightforwardness, kindness, open mindedness, patience.

Your favourite occupation
Writing.

Your idea of happiness
Self-sufficiency.

Your idea of misery
Idleness.

If not yourself, who would you be
Marina Warner.

Where would you like to live
In an eco-house I built myself from scratch.

Your favourite colour and flower
Orange, dog daisy.

Your favourite prose authors
Margaret Atwood, Marge Piercy, Marina Warner, Russell Hoban, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Your favourite poets
Dorianne Laux, Patricia Young, Kim Addonizio, Kerry Hardie, Sharon Olds, Paul Farley, Jacob Polley, George Watsky, Edwin Morgan, William Letford, millions of others.

Your favourite heroes in fiction
Boromir, Withnail, and Barry.

Your favourite heroines in fiction
Marianne Dashwood, Lady Harriet Cumnor, Iris Chase-Griffen, Clementine Kruczynski.

Your favourite heroes in real life
My gampy (grandpa).

Your favourite heroines in real life
Hillary Clinton, Jean Kilbourne, Betty White, my friend Martyna, my sister, many others.

Your favourite food and drink
Fresh crusty bread, broccoli, mashed potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, puy lentils, spinach, sea-salt and caramel chocolate from The Chocolate Tree, ImproV’s “uncheesecake”, strawberries; tea, berry juices, red wine, a dry Manhattan.

Your favourite names
Willa for a girl, Dashiell for a boy.

Your pet peeve
Misogyny.

The change you most anticipate
Getting to a place in my life where I can be greener and more self-sufficient.

A gift of nature which I would like to have
Proper real confidence.

How I would like to die
Quickly.

What is your present state of mind
Sleepy, and craving cuddles.

Of what fault are you most tolerant
Ambition, if ambition actually is a fault.

Your favourite motto(s)
I have many. Wiccan folks, who say “an it harm none, do what ye will” are pretty sensible. My mum always says “if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well,” and my dad always says “do your best,” both of which have informed my thinking quite deeply.

*

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Right before I left the States for Europe, I dyed my hair bright red. In a poetry workshop at Cave Canem, Nikki Finney asked the other poets to describe the color of my hair as specifically as possible. Red like paprika, like Kool-Aid, like burnt sienna, like rust… I carry these colors in my head like memories of past lives.

This piece, by Saeed Jones, is really excellent. All about appearance, identity, race, place and loss. Fabulous.

Want to be able to read lying down without getting neck-strain or having all the blood run out of your arms? Now you can… as long as you don’t mind looking daft.

This tutorial on how to make your own small notebook is really cool.

OMG this is a newly-found photograph of (probably) Emily Dickinson! …and speaking of Emily Dickinson: O M G !!!

“Around 11:00PM I received 3 different calls, all blocked, with one leaving a “delete your review!” voicemail and the second stating that I should just kill myself for being such a miserable person for attacking poor Emily. REALLY? And yes, I’m talking with the cops about this already. I mean that’s Misery kind of fan territory. Not long after I heard a loud bang on my deck and I was legitimately scared that it was a gunshot. Far fetched maybe but this was quickly sinking into WTF territory.”

This girl received death threats for writing an Amazon review… and the novelist felt this was pretty OK. I’ve never heard of Emily Giffin but I am sure as hell boycotting her every book after this!

A peek inside the Sketchbooks of the Pros.

Got puns? You do now!

The world’s most beautiful literary magazines — and I’ve been published in one of them! Woo!

You’re thinking about skipping over this one without clicking because it’s called How To Use Google Search More Effectively, aren’t you? DON’T, I BEG YOU. It blew my tiny little mind.

98% of everything I own is second hand. My blow dryer, my picture frames, my sheets (not as gross as you’re imagining). They cost a fraction of what I’d pay for them new, and no one’s the wiser. At least until I tell the internet that I sleep on used sheets.

ME TOO, LADY. And all the other advice listed here is bloody excellent, too.

I contributed to this IdeasMag article on how to make a good impression in your University application. If you’re a prospective student, check it out!

Katja’s meditations make me want to say thank you for more stuff. So, thank you, Katja, for your blog. It’s awesome.

Allow me to teach you a new word.

OMG Starbucks bans screenwriters! So funny!

Yes, I was scared at times, but I had also been scared sitting on my futon watching “The Real World.” (Scared of the phone, scared of the future, scared of what people said about me.) The far more terrifying fate, as I saw it, was that I would fail to become the person I wanted to be. I still wasn’t sure what that was yet. I spent much of those five months feeling like a kite dangling on a string. Was I going to head to grad school? Write for television? Open my own school? My mind filled with clouds. But my God, it was fun. It was boring, too. I took eight-hour hikes and let my mind wander, or sang the “Xanadu” soundtrack for the 18 billionth time.

Why every woman should travel alone chipped quite a big block off my terror at the thought of doing just that.

I was chuffed to come across this database of great vegan cookery zines.

…and speaking of which, I am officially a disciple of the goddess Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and her guide to vegan activism is AWESOME.

Political Facebook discussions. So awful. So true. (I harbour a special resentment for “The Thoughtful One.”)

I am neither an empty man-socket nor a fucking venus flytrap. I am not looking to “attract a man.” I am just trying to do my stuff and then maybe meet a person who likes me because I am also a person. I didn’t want to get all serious right off the bat, BUT SORRY: Women’s grueling, lifelong, losing battle to transform themselves into magical, flawless creatures with Disney hair and 15-inch waists and massive ham-lips is not for the benefit of women. And when men say that they “love to see the woman underneath the makeup,” they’re not saying they want to see your leg stubble and greasy bangs—they’re saying they want you to be better at hiding your maintenance routine.

I utterly, utterly love Lindy West. My sister, my bloke and I all cackled hysterically at her take-down of stupid guys who comment on their ladies’ beauty routines.

OK, you might think I’m ridiculous, but this woman’s videos have CHANGED MY HOUSE FOREVER.

Is it terrible that, rather than buying things from this Etsy store, I am using it as inspiration to make DIY book-based projects…?

OI!!! Edinburgh Vintage is having a SALE! There’s also a FINAL CLEARANCE section! Go buy pretty things and help me empty my spare room!

Zoe Margolis looking HAWT and calling publishers out on their bullshit.

Amy Poehler being a magical badass goddess of wisdom.

& finally, I love this. Who said Etsy sellers don’t have a sense of humour?

Have a great weekend!

*

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Things I’ve loved over the past seven days.

MY WEEK…
…which looked like this:

♥ Hawking the second print-run of my book ♥ Hula hooping in the sunny Meadows, learning some new tricks ♥ Visiting Barter Books, one of the UK’s biggest second-hand bookstores, and one of my favourite places, natch ♥ Going to pick up our supposedly-bog-standard ‘economy’ rental and getting a brand-spanking-new jet black Fiat 500 ♥ Paddling in an incredibly warm North Sea ♥ Visiting a major literary landmark and saying hi to Dracula ♥ Lovely Boyfriend being lovely ♥ Hanging out on the beach til late with beers and waves and a sunset ♥ KITTEHS ♥ One of my all-time favourite towns: Whitby ♥

Honourable mentions: Um, this! This this this this this! // I finally finished The Book of Men — I’ve been reading it slowly, savouring each poem. It is incredible. // Goes without saying, but… the sunshine. Oh my goodness, the sunshine. // Driving. I forget how much I enjoy it. Hooray for roadtrips! // Good sleep. Nuff said. // Lovely Boyfriend choosing to make his computer game avatars female. SERIOUSLY, this makes me so happy // Lending my flat to friends and coming home to find they’ve tidied up and left snacks! // Plotting big exciting future travels and possible mega life decisions // Tea, as always // Getting back into doing Wardrobe Remix. So good for my sporadic phases of BDD.

What are YOU loving this week?

*

You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!